Barack H. Obama
The President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We at The American Spectator and the many Americans signed below are writing to express our concern that Christmas day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in U.S. criminal courts. We who have attached our names to this petition demand that Mr. Abdulmutallab and any future terror suspects who attack the homeland of the United States be tried under a military tribunal.

Mr. Abdulmutallab's sanctuary in civilian court is jeopardizing America's national security. He was trained by Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and almost surely has valuable information regarding the decaying security situation in that region. If he had been placed under military custody, we would be able to interrogate him regarding how he was financed, who he worked with in the planning stages, how he was trained, and what he knows about future operations.

We are now mired in a situation where civilian authorities are offering plea bargains in exchange for information. Unfortunately, Mr. Abdulmutallab is no longer talking to interrogators after being read his Miranda rights and after getting a court-appointed lawyer (at taxpayer expense). At the time of writing, the CIA has never been allowed to speak with the bomber, nor has any member of the wider American intelligence community.

Moreover, trial in a civilian court carries the risk of a media circus and an opportunity for Mr. Adbulmatallab to spout off terrorist propaganda. In addition, since the would-be bomber has pleaded not guilty, who knows if his lawyers will be able to get a light sentence for him or even get him acquitted?

We the undersigned, along with 71% of Americans polled in a recent Rasmussen survey, agree that Mr. Abdulmutallab should be tried in military court, rather than civilian court. During the 1990s, terrorists were treated as criminals, but they are more than criminals -- they are at war with the United States. As multiple terror attacks have demonstrated, we cannot afford to make the mistakes of the 1990s once again in the year 2010. As enemies of the United States, terrorists neither require nor deserve the same legal protections that we Americans enjoy as citizens in a free society.

Respectfully,

The American Spectator

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